Politics this week

After rebels tied to al-Qaeda advanced south from their strongholds in the Sahara desert towards Mali’s capital, Bamako, France’s President François Hollande ordered French troops and aircraft to the area and successfully halted their advance. An African regional force was expected in due course to participate. See article

In neighbouring Algeria militant Islamists pounced on a gas plant and seized foreign workers, including American, British and French nationals. One group, with links to the local al-Qaeda outfit, claimed the attack was a reprisal for French intervention in Mali. See article

An attack on Aleppo’s university in northern Syria was said to have killed at least 87 people; the rebels and President Bashar Assad’s government blamed each other. See article

South Africa’s government threatened Anglo American Platinum with the loss of its mining licence after the firm said it would cut 14,000 jobs.

Kenyan officials seized more than 600 pieces of ivory in the port of Mombasa before they could be illegally exported. The killing of a family of 11 elephants this month was the single worst incident of poaching recorded in the country.

Good luck

Barack Obama unveiled the most ambitious proposals in America on gun control in 20 years, in light of last month’s mass-shooting at a school in Connecticut. The policies are a mix of executive actions and congressional bills which include a ban on assault weapons and stringent background checks. The gun-rights lobby marshalled its supporters. One congressman from Texas said he would start impeachment proceedings against the president if he imposed restrictions. See article

California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office confirmed that the state has “reached a point where its underlying expenditures and revenues are roughly in balance”, a sharp turnaround after years of deficits. The LAO was giving its broad approval to the budget put forward by Jerry Brown, the governor.

The House approved a $51 billion aid package to areas that are still recovering from the aftermath of Sandy, a big storm that pummelled the north-east in October. Most Republicans voted against the bill because, they said, it contained a large proportion of unnecessary spending.

Church versus state

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Paris over plans to give gay couples the right to marry and adopt children. France’s Socialist government wants to change the law soon, but the Catholic church and the conservative opposition argue that this would undermine a building block of society.

Aslan Usoyan, said to be Russia’s top mafia boss and better known as Grandpa Khasan, was shot dead outside a restaurant in Moscow. He had survived two previous assassination attempts.

The first round of voting in the Czech presidential election produced a surprise when Karel Schwarzenberg, the conservative foreign minister, came in second. He will compete against Milos Zeman, a former prime minister, in a run-off later this month. See article

Slovenia’s anti-corruption watchdog accused Janez Jansa, the prime minister, of graft, citing €200,000 ($265,000) in private assets which he allegedly failed to declare. Mr Jansa’s centre-right coalition partners asked him to resign; he has so far refused to go. See article

Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s radical left-wing opposition leader, went to Berlin to meet Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister. He presented Mr Schäuble with a list of requests, ranging from debt forgiveness of the kind extended to post-war Germany to recognition of war debts claimed by Greece when it was under Nazi occupation. See article

He has his supporters

A Muslim cleric, Tahir ul Qadri, burst onto the political scene in Pakistan by leading the biggest march on Islamabad, the capital, in recent memory. The moderate Sufi called for a corrupt political class to be swept away; he may have the support of the army, zealous to protect its privileges. To add to the strange swirlings, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, over scandals during his time in office as the water and power minister. See article

Meanwhile, protests were held in Quetta, a city in western Pakistan, against a rise in sectarian violence aimed at ethnic Hazara Shias. The bombing of a snooker hall on January 10th killed 86 people there. See article

A Pakistani became the fifth soldier killed this year near the line of control separating Indian and Pakistan positions in disputed Kashmir. Two of the five soldiers killed were Indian. After India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, issued an unusually stern warning to Pakistan, the two countries agreed to “de-escalate” tensions.

Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, unveiled a ¥10.3 trillion ($116 billion) stimulus package, which adds to Japan’s huge pile of debt but which Mr Abe insisted would lift the country out of recession. He also increased political pressure on the Bank of Japan, again calling on it to banish deflation and “take responsibility for the real economy”.

Measures of air pollution in China’s capital, Beijing, went from “hazardous” to beyond measurement. Much of the country lay shrouded in smog. Ordinary Chinese and even the state media have been unusually critical of the government’s inadequate measures to deal with filthy air. See article

Sitting in the boss’s chair

Nicolás Maduro showed that he is Venezuela’s acting president in all but name. On behalf of Hugo Chávez, he gave a state-of-the-nation speech to the National Assembly and appointed a new foreign minister, Elías Jaua. Mr Maduro said Mr Chávez, who remains out of sight in Cuba after a cancer operation five weeks ago, was feeling a bit stronger.

Talks between Colombia’s government and the FARC guerrillas resumed in Havana after a Christmas break. The negotiators are still discussing agrarian reform, the first of five agenda items; both sides said they wanted the talks to move more quickly.

In Cuba hundreds of people queued to apply for passports as a law abolishing exit visas took effect. Meanwhile, the government said there had been 50 cases of cholera in a district of Havana, but that the outbreak was under control.

This article appeared in the The world this week section of the print edition under the headline "Politics this week"